The present invention is an improvement of my baby seat plate as disclosed in my earlier U.S. Pat. No. 4,471,970 issued Sep. 18, 1984 and entitled "Resiliently biased seat panel for a seat frame of a push-cart." That patent discloses an infant seat plate which has a spring element which biases the seat plate against the leg holes of a rear wall of a shopping cart whereby the seat plate is automatically in a position against the rear wall to obstruct leg holes provided therein, whereby merchandise placed on the baby seat frame adjacent the rear wall does not fall through the leg holes. Biasing the seat plate against these leg holes provides various advantages as clearly described in that patent.
The present invention is an improvement of that seat plate wherein I provide a means to retain the seat plate against the seat frame, when the frame is in a position of use, to permit a person to use both hands for placing a child on the seat frame with the plate in position. In other words, the person does not have to hold the seat plate in position with one hand while placing the child in the seating compartment. Furthermore, it is necessary that when the carts are nested these seat plates return automatically to their position against the rear wall to obstruct the leg holes so that if the shopping cart is utilized with the baby seat compartment free of an infant, the shopper can safely place articles over the seat frame of the baby seat compartment with the leg holes being obstructed by the seat plate. With most shopping carts, not employing my seat plate as described in my above-referred-to patent, in most instances the seat plate lies over the seat frame with the leg holes being unobstructed, and this causes articles to fall through the leg holes and break often causing injury to people pushing the cart immediately in the area of the leg holes.